Mooresville Public Library (Mooresville, Indiana) already has its 2010 banned books display up and ready to read! This year, Banned Books Week is Sept. 25 through Oct. 2, 2010. Select a banned book of your choice to read. You have the freedom to choose! Protect it by exercising your right to read what you want.
No books have been banned in the USA for about a half a century. See "National Hogwash Week."
ReplyDeleteThomas Sowell says Banned Books Week is “the kind of shameless propaganda that has become commonplace in false charges of ‘censorship’ or ‘book banning’ has apparently now been institutionalized with a week of its own.” He calls it “National Hogwash Week.”
Former ALA Councilor Jessamyn West said, "It also highlights the thing we know about Banned Books Week that we don't talk about much — the bulk of these books are challenged by parents for being age-inappropriate for children. While I think this is still a formidable thing for librarians to deal with, it's totally different from people trying to block a book from being sold at all."
Banned Books Week is Next Week
And then there's Judith Krug herself who created BBW:
"Marking 25 Years of Banned Books Week," by Judith Krug, Curriculum Review, 46:1, Sep. 2006. "On rare occasion, we have situations where a piece of material is not what it appears to be on the surface and the material is totally inappropriate for a school library. In that case, yes, it is appropriate to remove materials. If it doesn't fit your material selection policy, get it out of there."
Lastly, remember the ALA does not oppose book burning when doing so would interfere with its political interests. Go see what Judith Krug said about Cuban librarians: "American Library Association Shamed," by Nat Hentoff.
Books have been challenged or banned from American schools and libraries well into the 1990s, according to "100 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature," by Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald & Dawn B. Sova (Checkmark Books, 1999). Examples abound across the country; there is insufficient space to include them all here, but even a cursory bibliographic examination of the subject affords sufficient evidence that Americans' freedom of reading choices in public venues is still being challenged by those who wish to control the flow and exchange of ideas.
ReplyDeleteWilliam R. Buckley, J.D.
Attorney at Law
"[C]hallenged or banned from American schools and libraries well into the 1990s...."
ReplyDeleteTrue. The key word being "or." The last book banned was half a century ago. All others since have been challenged, sometimes for worthy reasons, sometimes not.
There is nothing wrong with bringing a challenge--after all, that's what material reconsideration policies are designed to address. The issue is usually how was the challenge subsequently handled.
"100 Banned Books," just to name one source, has examples from the last quarter of the 20th century in which school boards and local governmental bodies in the U.S. voted to remove or exclude books from libraries, but these decisions were usually challenged in court, resulting in some cases in policy reversals. Political decisions to exclude or remove books from collections have been made during the last 25 years, requiring a judicial response to counteract this type of censorship.
ReplyDeleteCorrect again. Again, it's not book banning. Please read the following:
ReplyDelete"It's Not Censorship, It's Parenting! Removing Books That are Inappropriate For Our Kids is Not the Same as Banning Books," by Erin Manning, MercatorNet.com, 18 November 2009.